Hannah Jones: Leggingsgate left me channeling my inner Lisa Riley

There I was, watching my new very favourite person, Lisa Riley, on Strictly Come Dancing when I had an epiphany: If she could wear leggings, and knee-high boots and a long top during rehearsal then so could I.

Things you don’t want to hear your husband say: “You don’t look as bad as I thought you would in that.”

Things you don’t expect to do in Asda on a busy Saturday afternoon: Drive around in an electric wheelchair.

Let’s start at the beginning with Leggingsgate.

There I was, watching my new very favourite person, Lisa Riley, on Strictly Come Dancing when I had an epiphany: If she could wear leggings, and knee-high boots and a long top during rehearsal then so could I. I too could be a “funky chunky monkey”.

Not having leggings on, I made the fatal mistake of tucking my trousers into them to get the effect and, biggest mistake of all, look in the mirror.

“Don’t worry,” said my very own knock-off Karl Lagerfeld in fingerless woollen gloves.

“It’ll look better with leggings. Take a pair and the boots into the changing room and see what they look like. Lisa Riley would.”

On they went, then out I went to show him and the first thing I saw was some fella who took time out from shouting at his kids to look me up and down. Sloooooowly.

A recent graduate from the Roger Moore School of Acting, he raised his left eyebrow then the right and, in an unprecedented nod to male bonding, turned to my husband and snorted: “I’ll leave this one to you mate.”

Employing that age old tactic of doing myself down before someone else had the chance, I stood before them all, belly in and pride wavering, and admitted “it’s all so awful” while secretly hoping that someone – anyone! – would tell me that I actually looked smoking.

Or, just like Lisa Riley would, not give a damn about what anyone thinks.

In the same way that some women can “just slip on” a pair of jeans and a white shirt and look a million dollars, I hoped that deploying magically powered leggings and long boots would cast my old look of the same old trousers (three pairs) and the same old tops (two pairs and one cardi with a hole in the sleeve) and the same old boots (short, battered and brown) into that great big wardrobe in the sky.

And then it came: “You don’t look as bad as I thought you would in that.”

To pick myself up, I decided to take my mother out for a treat. She hasn’t been out of the door for seven weeks so I offered to cart her anywhere she wanted.

Abergavenny, Cowbridge, Bristol or Bridgend, were my suggestions.

So Makro it was.

I went in first to find a wheelchair for her. As we’re novices in this mode of transport, it took me and Dad Jones 20 minutes to work out how to open it up.

Then, when we’d finally got it and she got in, we pulled away without much success as her wide-legged trousers, perfectly designed to cover up bandages, got caught in the wheels.

We managed to untangle her, but not before ripping her clothes as we argued about who should tug or pull.

An hour later, and flushed with success of not injuring anyone in our way, off we went to that another big Valleys attraction for a grand day out: Asda.

But this time there were no manual wheelchairs, only electric ones left.

Talk about unchartered territory. As she’d previously turned down the offer of a motorised chair for a manual one which she’d never sat in and is now rusted with plants blooming graciously on the big seat, borrowing one was a risk but one Dad Jones and I thought was worth making.

But how to get it outside, through the store, past the trolley park, around the car park and finally to her?

So there was only one thing for it: I had to channel my inner Lisa Riley, ignore the internal chattering and get in.

So I drove it, through the store, past the trolley park, around the car park and finally to my mother whose face was a picture of shock, awe, fear and disbelief.

“I’m not getting in that,” she yelped at us. “I can’t risk ruining my reputation as well as my trousers!”

I told her Lisa Riley would – not that I think she heard me over the bellowing shriek of the chair’s reversing beeps as I beat a hasty retreat back to the shop.

But in she got and a whole new world of opportunity opened up for her.

Yes, just like Lisa Riley on Strictly (but so unlike me from the waist down).

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